


Heartlines

by la_novatrice (fleurs_du_mol)



Series: Ténébreuse et profonde unité [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, First Time, Fix-It of Sorts, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, M/M, Murder, Pancakes, Pillow Talk, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Rain, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-04-24 10:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14353635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurs_du_mol/pseuds/la_novatrice
Summary: Without belying much concern, Hannibal brings a cafetière and a mug to the table. He follows with an electric kettle, pouring water over the grounds. “What did you dream of?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if it's considered a "fix-it" when you're fixing the pain caused by your own story? But this series works/will work off the premise that everything described in "Heart-eating" is part of Will's dreams. (I normally hate that trope, but it seems appropriate for "Hannibal.") So, along with dreaming that Hannibal became Proteus, he also dreamed that Hannibal died. Will won't express that overtly; I felt it needed mentioning in an author's note for clarity's sake.
> 
> The rating may change, but as of now, I don't envision things getting too graphic. I'll try to tag accordingly.
> 
> I hope it's enjoyable, dark, and sweet.

A fire crackles in the grate and the air smells like sausage.

It has to be “real.” That is, sausage from a non-human animal. Hannibal had only left the house once, and it wasn’t long enough to murder. He’d just come back with a dog.

After a moment of staring at the rafters, Will shrugs off his quilts and walks haltingly down the stairs. The banister is old, splintered in places, but it feels familiar and solid under his palm. He didn’t expect to be so hungry. Maybe it’s a sign of healing. He hopes so. He has more scars than he wanted, even back when he was a cop and accepted physical harm as a realistic risk.

The Airedale who Hannibal _says_ he found wandering outside - “From where?” was Will’s immediate question; they were in the middle of nowhere and this was a purebred dog, Will was sure - meets him on the second to last step. Tail wagging, tongue lolling, he hops with alacrity to stand by the tips of Will’s toes.

“Barca, you’re going to trip me, one of these days." Will bends stiffly and pets him, anyway. Content, Barca leads Will down the stairs and into the kitchen, claws clicking on the wood floor.

He pauses to glance behind every few seconds, brown eyes bright in his serious little face. Will has to smile; Hannibal mentioned recently that Barca reminded him of Will. Despite shamming annoyance, Will had to admit privately that he had a point.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be up for another hour or two, at least, but then I realized you were stirring."

Hannibal is turned to the stove, the stove that isn’t industry grade. Will is beginning to understand that a chef’s kitchen never  _allowed_  him to be a brilliant gourmand. He just was. That, as with many of his qualities, is almost fully intrinsic.

“Isn’t it good that I’m not sleeping until six at night?” Will settles into a chair at the table and watches Hannibal cook in profile. Barca comes over and lays on his feet. “I feel like all I’ve done is sleep.”

“Your body is healing. That rather depends on why you woke up.”

“Dreams.”

Without belying much concern, Hannibal brings a cafetière and a mug to the table. He follows with an electric kettle, pouring water over the grounds. “What did you dream of?”

Will inhales coffee-scented steam and shifts the subject. He won’t tell Hannibal about his dreams of Proteus - the nightmares where he is left alone. “How long have you had this place?” he says. Hannibal won’t tell him where they are, yet. It must be remote, or forgotten by most people. Had to be, if it was one of Hannibal’s boltholes. Neither of them is exactly at liberty.

Will is good with geography and generally had a sense of true north. That didn’t matter, now. He was mentally and literally jostled.

Still, it couldn’t be prohibitively far from where they’d ended up coming to shore. They’d been too injured. There wasn’t much he remembered clearly. Pain. The fall. Snatches of swimming, walking, stumbling, being carried. Cold. The slow energy leech of blood loss. Then warm. Here.

“As long as I’ve wanted a cabin.”

Will sighs. That’s all the answer he’ll get. “Somehow, it breathes ‘Hannibal,’ but I’ve never pictured you someplace like this.” It’s nothing like Hannibal’s house in Baltimore, although it has reminders of the same elegance.

“Where do you normally picture me?” Smiling with his eyes more than his mouth, Hannibal sets the kettle down on the counter. “Nineteenth century. A wealthy family built it as a summer home, though it’s not nearly as big as those typically were. I think they wanted the intimacy of a small residence.” He flips sausages, barely looking at them. “They were murdered in 1904… husband, wife, and youngest daughter.”

The murder probably allured Hannibal in the first place. Unsurprised, Will asks, “Who did it?”

“The father’s older daughter from another marriage.”

“Ah. A less sensational Lizzie Borden, then?” Will arches an eyebrow.

“Not completely unlike,” Hannibal says. “The court transcriptions were harrowing. She accused her father of making inappropriate advances on her.”

“Where did she kill them?”

“The front parlor.”

“How did she…” Will peers at what Hannibal is doing with a mixing bowl, then a skillet.  _That_ surprises him more than the revelation of grisly crime. “Are you making _pancakes_?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Do you like them?” Hannibal pauses mid-ladle, batter poised to be dropped.

“Yes, but… pancakes. Seem… so… plebeian.”

“You aren’t a plebe, Will.”

Will chuckles at the response. “Thank you. I think.” Then he has to shy away from the warmth in Hannibal’s voice. He glances at Barca. “We should consider spelling Barca with a ‘k’ for the pun value.” He’s thinking ahead, far ahead, to a time when they can put a collar on Barca or chip him. Right now, either would be a liability if he did get lost. Someone could feasibly trace where he’d come from. Will always watches Barca vigilantly when he goes outside. It's strange not to see him frolicking with a pack. “If he’s…” Will takes a deep breath, mind racing, rooms in his memory palace bleeding into each other like they’re tents whose fabric is old and has lost its weatherproofing. “Around.”

The idea is absurd. This all is. Here he is, alive. Here Hannibal is, alive.

He survived. His monster survived.

But existence here, wherever _here_ was, is gentle. Dreamlike in a good sense. Even Hannibal is gentle. Wearing cozy - they're still costly - sweaters. Making pancakes. Getting him a dog. Keeping him housebound while he’s recovering.

“He could be.”

“Do you even like dogs?”

“I prefer cats, but I like some dogs. I like Barca.”

As though summoned, Barca trots to Hannibal and presents him with an open mouth, politely begging.

“Cats,” Will repeats. He looks up at Hannibal again and smiles. “Of course you like cats.” Hannibal crumbles the edge off a sausage patty and feeds it to Barca. “You shouldn’t feed him our food." Will shakes his head. "He’ll get entitled. Why didn’t you get a cat the day you got Barca?”

“I haven’t seen a cat outside.”

Will purses his lips, trying not to smile more broadly. “It’s only been… what… two… three weeks?” he says, pressing the cafetière. He pours fresh coffee into the mug. “Don’t lose hope. Cat could just wander into the garden.”

“I never lose hope.”

 _In a singular way,_ thinks Will, _that's true._ Hannibal is one of the most hopeful people he’s ever met. They go silent for a minute or two. Hannibal shifts his pancakes; Will drinks.

Staring out the window at the fog-shrouded woods, Will says, “I left my windows open last night because it started to rain. I liked the sound of it in the trees.”

“I heard it on the roof.”

“Are you a heavy sleeper?”

They haven’t shared a room, much less a bed. Will was in the old master bedroom. Hannibal took the attic.

Will didn’t like his gallantry. _On the other hand, I would be a terrible lover right now. Meanwhile, Hannibal, even with a gut wound, would probably be able to fuck me six ways to Sunday._  He’d rather not have their first time marked by him ripping his own stitches or passing out. _Not sexy._ Hannibal had seen all of him. Felt most of him. But that wasn’t the same as touching him for its own sake.

“Lately, no.”

“Why not?”

Without turning to look at him, Hannibal says, “I’ve been… keeping watch on you.”

With some wonder, Will says, “Why?”

“I was afraid that when you went to sleep, you might not wake up.”

Will knows the extent of his own injuries. They were worse than he thought, but he knows they weren’t urgent enough to merit someone watching him all night. Will knows that Hannibal knows they weren’t so urgent. It's sentiment and attachment that stoke his fears. “You were in the chair." He’d thought those were fever dreams: Hannibal sitting in the wingback chair by the fire with a book, with a sketchbook, with nothing. Bathed in orange light, an eerie apparition, but comforting. There until morning. Then gone.

“I was,” says Hannibal. “And you always woke up.” He has a plate of sausage and pancakes in hand, and pushes it gently toward Will. “Jam, or syrup?”

“You should have been sleeping, too. Ah…” Will gingerly rubs his face. “Jam.”

When Hannibal sits at the table across from him, he has his own plate in one hand and a small jar of preserves in the other. “As far as store-bought goes, these are the best.”

A glimpse of the label tells Will they’re French. “Did you mail-order groceries?” He spoons the preserves onto his pancakes after he closes the butter dish. “It must have been before we… arrived.”

“I’ve been stockpiling for some time. It attracted less attention to order things online. Have them brought here.”

“Like one of those people who plans for the end of the world.”

“In a respect,” says Hannibal. He pours dark maple syrup onto his food, sausage included. “End of one world. Birth of another.”

Will studies the rivulets of syrup as they melt into the pancakes. Perhaps influenced by the theme of syrup and jam, he asks, “Why are you being… sweet… to me?”

Hannibal falls quiet, and Will hears Barca breathing under the table and the tick of the exquisite grandfather clock in the parlor. The sounds compliment one another.

“For the same reason you jumped, too. You could have just pushed me off.”

Will takes a bite and the flavors burst on his tongue. They’re simple, nostalgic, but elevated from a childhood staple, feeling like the color of ripe strawberries. “No. I couldn't have. I could stay here forever,” he confesses. “Like this. I’ve had enough… of everything else.”

After he says it, he sees the same tiredness, the same feeling of homecoming and thresholds being crossed, mirrored in Hannibal’s battered, bruised face. He’s learned to read Hannibal. Always could.

“If you want it, Will.”

“I want it.” He meets Hannibal’s eyes, and there’s softness in them.

“I’m glad.”

“It smells like it will rain again.”

Hannibal inhales. “Yes," he says. "I think it will.”

“Come listen to the rain with me, tonight."


	2. Chapter 2

By the time the grandfather clock chimes nine, a storm has come. The sky is grey and the air is electric. From where he sits next to the open front window, Will glances at Hannibal. “There’s a lake nearby, isn’t there?” The rain has a different quality this close to the ground, compared to his bedroom upstairs; he makes out more metallic splashes than those on the leaves. It’s water on water. Water coming home.

Hannibal rests on the Persian rug in front of the massive fireplace. His sketchbook is open; his pencil is skimming the thick paper. “Good ear. Through the trees out there. It’s not a large one,” he says. “More of a glorified pond.” 

“I hope you’ve never said so within its hearing. Someday, it might be a real lake.”

“Are you advocating for the nymphs, now?”

Will just smiles and studies the trees. “What are you drawing?”

“You.”

“ _Me?_ ”

“Yes.”

“With all of the things in your memory palace, you pick me. Me as I am, now. All… scarred.” _I was never vain, but I look so_ rough _,_ he thinks. _Maybe one day, I’ll just look hard to intimidate._ "Even my face is scarred, now."

“It _is_ pleasant to draw from life, too,” says Hannibal. He glances at Will from under lowered lashes. Will doesn’t _want_ to jump when there’s thunder, but does, and Barca doesn’t yelp at the sound, but then he turns apoplectic at the lightning. 

Hannibal looks up, resigned, when he tears into the room. 

Chuckling quietly at Hannibal’s expression, Will says, “ _Hannibal._ He’s an Airedale. They’re generally quiet, but when they make noise, it’s insistent.” He lets his hand dangle off the sofa. “Hey. Barca. C’mere.” 

But Barca wants Hannibal. Will can’t blame him. Barca huffs once more, then settles along Hannibal’s legs, shedding wiry short hair on black wool trousers. Hannibal resumes drawing.  He says, “I wonder if it’s his first big thunderstorm.”

Falling somewhere between “puppy" and “juvenile,” Barca is still young. It’s possible. Eyes on the dog, Will says, “Could be. _I_ wonder if he’ll bark at the lightning all night.” Another white flash bursts. Although Barca gives a little growl, he’s largely silent. Will chuckles, again.

“What do we do if that happens?”

Ruefully, Will says, “Oh. I don’t do the thing you’re _supposed_ to do.”

“What’s that?”

“There are different schools of thought, but lots of people say you should ignore him. Like… a kid. You know… a kid who’s crying. Let him bark himself out. Maybe… you don’t know.” Will wonders, but can’t ask, if Hannibal ever let Mischa cry herself out over anything. Or Abigail. He doesn’t believe Hannibal could have. 

Then, he had let Chiyoh cry plenty. 

“Something tells me _you_ can’t ignore a dog in distress," says Hannibal. "Perhaps you _could_ ignore a baby or a child.”

“I probably couldn’t. I couldn't ignore Walter, and he was older when I met him.” Resolutely, Will doesn’t think of Walter, too much, and he drives the ghosts of Mischa and Abigail from his mind. “I know I couldn’t. There aren’t exact parallels between dogs and children, anyway.”

“That’s arguably a good quality,” says Hannibal. He shades an area on the page, graphite scratching back and forth gently. Then his thumb strokes it. “Without it, we’d probably be considerably worse off as a species. Too many dead babies. And no, there aren’t.”

“I’m strict about some things. You’ve got to establish yourself as an alpha in their minds. So. No hanging out on the bed.” 

“Will you let _me_ on your bed? I don’t like thunder.”

Will swallows. “I’m not trying to alpha you, so…”

“I don’t know if it’s possible for either of us to accomplish.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do since we met?”

“Well. More or less. Look how it turned out. I’ve no idea which of us is in charge.”

Will smirks at him. Weeks ago, months ago, years ago, he’d have been furious at the cheek. Hannibal at least _believed_ he was in charge. It was part of his construct of self. 

“Other rules: no dinner at the same time as me. No human food,” says Will. He catches himself and clarifies when Hannibal raises his eyebrows. “That is, food cooked for human consumption. I guess literal _human food_ is another issue altogether.”

“Yours didn’t go after you after I fed them,” Hannibal says. “They never associated the taste of human flesh with attacking a person because they hadn’t attacked someone to eat them.” He pauses, looks at him with heat in hazel eyes and the devil’s own half-smile on his lips. “In their innocence, they only knew they were eating something new and enjoyable.”

Puzzling, Will runs a hand through his hair. He still isn’t positive he’s comfortable with his nonchalance over Hannibal’s old food sources. But the fact remains that he _is_ nonchalant. _I’m not a prospective meal, though. Not now._ Smiling reluctantly, ignoring the urge to drop to his knees on the rug, he says, “That’s… a good point. I _wasn’t_ eaten by my dogs. Not even after you… _we_ … watched Mason feed them his own face. Maybe they were just… dull, then.” Will’s tongue flicks along his lips. “But… back to storms… when I first found Winston, he wasn’t old enough to have learned much about life. Like Barca. Thunderstorms scared him. Snowstorms, too. He was _terrified.”_

_“_ Just at night?” 

_“_ Mm. Whenever, but especially when they happened at night. I didn’t let him on my bed, but I often got on the ground with him. He’s been the only one I’ve had who reacted so badly, though.”

“Here’s hoping Barca does a little better.”

“He already is. Lighting hasn’t stopped. I’d bet it’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at him,” says Will. 

He’s curled up just above Hannibal’s feet, nose level with the tips of his toes. His eyes are still open, but he blinks heavily. “My uncle’s dogs were fine with me,” says Hannibal, seemingly enchanted despite himself. 

Stretching on the sofa, Will closes his eyes and says, “I’ll bet they were… Borzois. Moneyed European family dogs.” He thinks of a young Hannibal, a little younger than the one in the picture Inspector Pazzi had shown him of _Il Mostro_ , chasing after a Borzoi, and grins to himself, looking mad with his eyes still shut. “And with _your_ legs, you were probably the only one who could catch them if they started off after something.”

“There’s no catching a Borzoi when they start to run.”

“Something you both have in common, then,” says Will, easily.

He doesn’t hear Hannibal get up, but the air eddies when Hannibal looms over him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Barca isn’t allowed to hop onto the bed; Will won’t let him. But he still doesn’t make a sound after his initial outburst and remains on the floor. Hannibal, reflecting on his limited experience with dogs, chooses not to question Barca’s placidity and remains thankful for it, instead. Perhaps Will is right and simply being near humans is calming. 

_But he said it was me,_ Hannibal thinks, half marveling. 

That any animal without human reasoning — not counting a particularly dull human, who he’d consider a pig, anyway — would be calm around him, calm _because_ of him, seems surreal. He understands how to lull and calm a person. He knows, intimately, how to trick minds. He feels that a simple creature like a dog, conversely, should be able to sense less savory qualities. Acting, wearing his “people suit,” shouldn’t fool one.

Will wasn’t fooled, though, and here _he_ is. Strewn across one side of the bed, naked, every injury without any exacerbation. Hannibal could look at him every day for the rest of their lives, and he’d still choose to draw him this way. 

“Who would have thought that my quiet, cunning boy would be such an… _expressive_ partner? Even while he’s recovering.”

“Yours?” Will mumbles into the pillow. He rests on the side of his face that doesn’t bear the stitches.

“Oh. Indubitably. As sure as the moon draws the tides.” Hannibal flutters a hand along Will’s back. “We’re lucky we’re in the middle of nowhere. Anywhere else, and we’d have the neighbors to consider.”

“I’ll poke your gut wound if you keep making a big deal over how loud I am in the sack, Hannibal, but you _can_ keep up with the poetry.”

Hannibal smiles. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“You’re not my first rodeo, Dr. Lecter.”

“No, but when one’s last rodeo was in college, and one is now approaching early middle-age…”

Will turns his head to give Hannibal a wry smirk. “Last rodeo with someone with a cock they didn’t have to _buy_ , you mean. How do you know what Molly and I got up to?” He shakes his head. “You were very deliberate. If I _was_ yelling, which, I’m not saying I was, it wasn’t out of duress or displeasure.”

“That’s true. I don’t know much about your life on the other side of the marital veil,” says Hannibal. “Did you and your wife engage in anal sex? Did you ever think of me while she was taking you?” 

Molly Graham causes him little concern. She’s about as significant as Will’s first crush, to Hannibal’s mind.  The sort of woman he’d found to marry was predictable: steadfast, practical, kind, and hard to ruffle. Accompanied by a child. Less conventionally beautiful than uncommonly warm. It was an elegant solution to Will’s lack of an “anchor.” 

“Does that excite you?”

“You know me better than anyone.” Hannibal knows Will’s rhetorical question translates to “Yes, I did.” He continues to pet him, tracing his side. “What do you think?”

“I always thought ‘Chesapeake Ripper’ was a stupid name. Less off the mark than ‘Hannibal the Cannibal,’ but still inaccurate.”

“Pardon?” Even now, Will has the capacity to surprise.

“You didn’t go after sex workers. You weren’t motivated by… oh, whorephobia. Or misogyny. You weren’t fixated on women.” Will sighs. "For starters."

“Like shy Francis, I didn’t choose my nickname,” says Hannibal. “The press and law enforcement saw superficial similarities and chose one for me. Made conjectures about the original Ripper that can’t even be fully corroborated.” He adds, “I think there was more than one Ripper, the first go around.”

“I liked the theory that he was actually a woman,” says Will. “But I also see how the canonical victims weren’t necessarily all killed by the same person. I’d need to look at the crime scene photos again to decide. I did go through a Jack the Ripper phase as a kid.”

“Maybe he really was Walter Sickert, and we’re all wrong.”

Affably, Will says, “Oh, don’t… she’s full of shit.”

Hannibal snickers. “Is pillow talk always going to be like this?”


	4. Chapter 4

Hannibal is roused by Will’s knee in his side. He gasps, startled. His eyes fly open; they land on Will’s sleeping face. Except for moonlight streaming through clouds and treetops into the open windows, the room is dark. Will’s expression is tormented, contorted. He’s flailing. _Fighting? Swimming?_ Hannibal puts his hand on Will’s shoulder. Before a moment passes, Will lashes out with his other fist; Hannibal captures his wrist and holds it gently to the bed. 

“Will,” he says.

Will doesn’t reply; Hannibal doesn’t expect him to, yet, but he is prepared for another knee to the side. That aches and burns, but he maneuvers over Will to straddle him. This helps, somewhat. Instead of furious, Will’s movements turn weak and tentative. Hannibal says, more awake, now, “Will.” He ignores — as he often had to do, around Will, though he doesn’t need to, any longer — how their physical closeness affects him. Scent; warmth; subtle flickers of heartbeats under skin.

His resolve is tested when Will’s body responds, first. He swallows, and by the time he can consider what to do, Will’s hips arch under his. If he correctly understood Will’s history of nightmares, they erred on the gothic side and he always assumed his unconventional not-patient-then-patient kept more private than he divulged. The signs of attraction were minute if one didn’t understand they existed. But Will would shift in his chair, his pupils would dilate, and he’d deflect the subject. His dreams twined the sexual, sensual, and the obscene. Hannibal knows his own ethics are socially unacceptable, but he doesn’t condone rape. Dubious sexual consent doesn’t excite him. 

So he waits. 

Will decides for him. One kiss, lingering and hot.


End file.
